It is a mistake rather common in England, and in Europe, to suppose that a majority, or even a minority, of the American generals are civilians. With very few exceptions indeed, they have either been some time at West Point, or have graduated there. In a country which has no established lines to mark the difference of classes, which nevertheless exists there as elsewhere, there is a positive social elevation acquired by any man who has graduated at West Point; and if he has taken a high degree, he is regarded in his State as a man of mark, whose services must be secured for the military organisation and public service in the militia or volunteers. There is no country in the world where so many civilians have received their education in military academies without any view to a military career. There are of course many “generals” and “colonels” of States troops who have had no professional training, but not nearly so many as might be imagined. But the great defect under which American officers laboured until this unhappy war broke out, was the purely empirical and theoretical state of their knowledge. They had no practical experience. The best of them had only such knowledge as they could have gleaned in the Mexican war. A man whose head was full of Jomini was sent off to command a detachment in a frontier fort, and to watch marauding Indians, for long years of his life, and never saw a regiment in the field. As to working the three arms together creditably in the field, I doubt if there is an officer in the whole army who could do it anything like so well as the Duke of Cambridge, or as an Aldershot or Curragh brigadier. It would be hard for any Englishman to be indifferent to the advantages of military training in a country where every village around could have told tale’s of the helpless, hopeless blundering which characterised the operations of the British generals hereabouts in the War of Independence. Deflecting thus, too, I felt less inclined to wonder at the mistakes made by the Federals, and by the Confederates. Had the British generals proved more lucky and skilful, should we now have been passing the towns which cluster on the banks of the Hudson, or would “monarchy” have impeded the march of life, commerce, and civilisation out here? Towns of 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and even of 30,000 inhabitants rise on the margin of the fine river, which in summer presents, I am assured, a scene of charming variety and animation, and in autumn is fringed by the most beautiful of all beautiful American landscapes, surcharged with the glorious colours of that lovely season. Through the darkness by the bright starlight we could see the steamboats locked fast in the ice, like knights in proof, awaiting the signal to set them free for the charge. But, ah me! how weary it was!--how horrible the stoves! At last and at last the train stopped, and finally deposited us at three o’clock in the morning on the left bank of the Hudson, at East Albany.